Eliza Anyangwe
I’m sure you feel it too: the gnawing sense of overwhelm? Of life coming at you too fast; the unrelenting onslaught of bad news; the transformation of your family Whatsapp group into a non-stop stream of understandable panic, outrage or even despair?
In many of our communities the crises have been unfolding for some time, but everywhere it seems that the decisions being made by the current US Administration are compounding, exacerbating or causing fresh harm. That harm, including to journalism itself both in the US and around the world, is being documented everyday – certainly because journalists understand this to be our job, perhaps also because there seem to be few other things we can legitimately do.
Even in our small newsroom it can feel as though the rest of the world has fallen away and there is nothing else that should command our attention but the crisis of democracy in the US, and with it, the survival of the media. Despite this, I have been unable to ignore the small, quiet voice that suggests to me that on some level, for journalists and specifically for The Fuller Project, nothing has really changed. Our work remains the same as it ever was because the marginalisation of women and gender minorities around the world did not begin with this administration – even if it seems intent to destroy with wild abandon.
It seems to me as important as ever to cover the winners and losers of patriarchy as humanely as we can, showing the agency of people we may tend to think of as just victims. It remains crucial that we connect the dots between the main challenges humanity faces and questions of gender because gender and sexuality remain important, yet invisible forces in how we will experience everything from climate change to online safety and beyond. Especially now, there is great value in convening decision makers and communities, using journalism to catalyse meaningful conversations, and in reporting on progress with the same curiosity as we cover crisis.
I have spent the last two weeks in the U.S., travelling with Fuller’s CEO Zsuzsi Lippai, talking to our board, our funders and to our team about how we might respond to this moment without becoming reactionary. I’m excited for the journalism we have coming. But when I have wavered in my conviction, I have returned to this post on LinkedIn by former Executive Director of Outlier Media, Candice Fortman, in which she speaks of the need for “journalism to decenter journalism.”
Fortman, who is now a JSK Fellow at Stanford, had the prescience to write two months ago: “Saving journalism has never been the job. The mission has always been to protect communities from an onslaught of predatory, violent, and deeply unjustifiable policies, companies, and systems that exploit our neighbors and prioritize profit over people. We are also charged with uplifting the brilliance of our neighbors, the history of our places, and the creative pulse that lives all around us.”
She goes on: “…I trust in the power of listening and building, unbounded by the constraints of what was but instead grounded in the urgency of what must be. We must be agile in our approaches no matter how we touch this industry. Be ready to build and build again.”
Our mandate may not have changed but what we must do is rethink how we go about it now – as Fortman says, “unbounded by the constraints of what was.” The road ahead may well be long, and at times bleak, but I remain excited by the mission to use journalism to catalyse change for women. In spite of, or perhaps because of the times, that work has rarely felt more pressing.
Upcoming for me:
I was due to return to Amsterdam this week to join feminist writer Roxane Gay in conversation on March 8 – International Women’s Day – but Gay unfortunately lost her mother, Nicole, to cancer in mid-February and that event has, rightfully, been cancelled. I encourage you to read the writer’s obituary for her mother, which is a beautiful account of a life fully lived.
Starting next week, I’ll be attending and speaking at side events of the Commission on the Status of Women, which the UN describes as the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality, the rights and the empowerment of women.”
